Sea
by Maaya
Summary: The sea is rowdy and unfamiliar. LuffyxNami.


Luffy/Nami, slight Zoro/Sanji. PG. Shameless Sap. Sentimental.  
Inspired by random Belle&Sebastian quotes and I'm throwing it all together under the same title. Sap alert. Sap alert. Code red.

**Sea  
** by Maaya

_(take your shoes off curl your toes)_

"Right, I'm going in!"

"Wha--Why?"

Such a stupid grin. "It looks cool, doesn't it?"

A beach on an autumn country is rarely very pleasant; the sea rowdy and unfamiliar. Today is a windy day, huge waves, salty foam and the sky; threatening grey. Nami knows how to calculate weather with simple principles, however; it is not often she feels the need. She can sense its freaks in her left thumb and right brow.

Luffy rather ignores the signs of anything. Like common sense. Nami calls him mad for saying he'll go wading in this weather. (Typically Luffy, always doing the thing furthest from Nami's mind and not _caring _about anything else.) You'll turn to ice, she says. And the fish will nibble on your toes as if they were ice cream.

Impressed, is the only way to describe Luffy's expression. Impressed and intrigued. (That's so cool!)

(Chopper overhears and seems horrified, will that really happen? Usopp hits Nami over the head for taking over his place as a liar, Sanji comes to her rescue and really, it is impossible to do _anything_ with this bunch around.)

Uncharacteristically quiet in the midst of a merry argument like this, Nami notices Luffy stick his tongue out at them all and sneak away. She is not surprised when she follows, finds his sandals kicked off at the waterside.

Following him out, Nami's toes do feel like ice. Right beside him, she calls him stubborn and stupid and thank god you can't swim or you'd be out there in the waves somewhere, freezing to death. For no reason, other than to defy them all and he feels like it.

She does not believe he listens. He is staring at the sky and water and wind and foam and Nami thinks, he can feel it too. The whole, and the part they play in it.

----

_(chasing me from town to town)_

The marines, _again_, darn bloodhounds, do they never rest and why do you look so happy, Luffy?

Only, it is useless to ask. Luffy is already cracking his knuckles. Sanji lightening a cigarette and Zoro, Zoro is awake. A bunch of simpletons. No wonder they became pirates. Food and ale and fighting and sleep and those three are happy enough.

If they sink the ship they are dead, Nami decides. If they destroy her maps, they are dead. If they are hurt, they are dead. She will _kill _them.

Until then. Nami stretches her arms, squints through her fingers at the sun and goes into the cabin to look for her sun lotion.

----

_(taking orders from a moron)_

Luffy looks like an idiot with that toothpaste moustache, Nami ponders. But it is all nice and well because now she knows, at least, that he brushes his teeth at all. There is still _some_ way to go before they have lowered themselves to the level of your average smelly pirate. Nami will never allow that to happen, even if she has to force soap and toothpaste onto them.

Usopp and Chopper are chuckling like loons at that particular moustache. Nami wonders for a split second if she ought to tell Luffy. Her mind delivers a no. Why would she bother?

Especially since Luffy, Chopper and Usopp are now engaged in a mock battle with some wooden sticks that had been lying around somewhere, stirring up a mess and they will darn well clean everything up when they are finished with.

Whatever they are doing, now. No way Nami is going to ask.

Sanji and Zoro, side by side, watching. They're looking more friendly than usual, perhaps. Meaning they are not subtly insulting each other. Interesting.

----

_(a photography of myself)_

So sometimes Nami likes to sit on the poop deck and do nothing but look. (To not be surrounded by idiots, to have some quiet without requesting some with violence) So sometimes Luffy likes to sit in the prow, on the figurehead and do nothing but look.

So sometimes they like to be alone, and be quiet. There are things in the past and things in the future and they can not do anything about either (what ifs are as useless as digging up a grave and hoping the corpse will come back to life), but they are worth thinking about.

Sometimes, being alone is, lonely. Sometimes, Chopper wakes up and has to use the bathroom and finds them sitting together.

Sometimes, Nami is sleeping on Luffy's shoulder, sometimes, Luffy is holding her hand.

----

_(he stood up with a sailor friend)_

When Luffy comes out of the sleeping quarters one night, whining that Zoro and Sanji are acting weird when they're together, even worse lately, Nami just pats on the empty place beside her on the bench and says that he better not bother them about it.

It is so visible how something says "ding-dong" in Luffy's head and he suddenly grins.

"They're kind of like _us_."

It is one of those few moments when Nami can't gather herself enough to snap.

----

_(when you open your eyes)_

Nami and Luffy look at each other and grin because the sea is there, right, ahead.

**end **


End file.
